I am no courtesan, nor moderator, nor tribune, nor defender of the people: I am myself the people.

He may be a patriot for Austria, but the question is whether he is a patriot for me.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.

Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

What experience and history teach is this—that nations and governments have never learned anything from history or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.

Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.